


Override

by The_Maze_Writer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Brainwashing, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Memory Loss, Past Brainwashing, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Maze_Writer/pseuds/The_Maze_Writer
Summary: His override code had never been triggered on the field before. Suddenly, the Asset was hurtling back into the pilot's seat and he was fucking confused as hell to find himself hundreds of feet above water on a carrier fit to explode, fist raised above a blue-clad man he didn't recognize.Cross-posted on Fanfiction.net
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Override

The Asset could be a dangerous, dangerous man.

There was an override code, of course, one that would bring the Asset out of his conditioning and back into himself if there was an emergency.

_"I'm with you to the end of the line."_

The Hydra higher-ups had thought themselves quite clever for that one. It originated from something the Asset would mumble to himself over and over again between rounds of torture, with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth open with heaving pants. It was fitting, as well as a cruel way to turn his words of comfort against him. Everything, even those words of hope and trust, were tied to Hydra. He _was_ Hydra. All his memories, his brain's coding, the way he was built.

Hydra hadn't known where the words had come from, didn't quite piece together that it was Captain America whom he had uttered them with. The same man they had ordered the Asset to take out. They didn't know those words had a deeper meaning, one that signified a bond deeper than blood.

Even if they had known, anyone would concede that there was a low chance the Captain would have actually used them, even by mistake. But risks were risks, and Hydra didn't have time for those. They would have taken precautions. They didn't have time for mistakes. Yet, they made a fatal error in not doing a background check Their arrogance led to a crucial oversight. Steve uttered the code on the hanger, hundreds no feet above the water.

_"Cause I'm with you to the end of the line"._

**Code: Override**.

...

**Accepted**

The Asset blinked.

Jesus.

Fuck.

What the-

Where..?

He was standing on a few fragile metal beams hundreds of feet above a huge body of water. The air was thick with smoke and the carrier was _on fire_. His metal fist was raised high above a man wearing a blue suit, face already bruised and bloody.

No.

This wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to remember what he was doing. He was supposed to be checked out, yet here he was, very much checked in. This wasn't part of the deal. The Winter Soldier was an inhuman machine that killed when he was told to without a conscience. Even though the Asset knew that it was his hands that were covered in blood by the end of the night, he let himself pretend it wasn't. He let himself pretend that the gaps in his memory were merely a mental nap, a check out point, the same as sleeping. He did what he did and then the Asset came back to himself back in the Hydra cell. That was how it always wasn't-

He couldn't-

The amnesia was a mercy.

Seems like I relied on it too long, he thought, bitterly. He hoped that the next wipe would take this away, he didn't-

This man was… god if he didn't look familiar. His brain ached, the locks on his memory rattled. He searched the face for a name, something, anything, to match him too.

..

_"I knew him, the guy on the bridge."_

_The Asset was in that familiar chair again, surrounded by doctors. Something had shaken The Winter Soldier that day, shocked him so much that his memories were leaking into the Asset's consciousness. It was a pretty much-unprecedented thing, almost nothing shook the Soldier. The memory locks rattled and he was filled with an emotion he couldn't name but he knew he didn't like. It made him feel wrong somehow, like he was full of holes. Every time he searched for a clue, the clue fell right out of his head before he could grab it._

_The man in the center of the room stared at him with hard eyes. Silence filled the air as the Hydra man glared at his project with a clenched jaw, eyes tight._

_"Wipe him"._

_Screaming._

_.._

That memory…. it was linked to this was the same man, he was sure if it. But-

**Inquiry: Confirm**.

_What?_

**Inquiry of Prior Meeting: Confirm. Steve.**

The name catapulted across his mind like a frisbee covered in spikes. It hit the corners and tore at the memory wall.

_"You've known me your whole life, Bucky."_

Who the fuck was "Bucky"? There was no one else in the sudden memory, and the man, "Steve", was looking right at…. well, right at him. In fact, there couldn't have been anyone else there. The Winter Soldier's memories were sharp, emotionless, and thorough. The Asset knows that from the wipes. The wipes were aggressive, gouging chunks of his mind and ripping them away. Sometimes, snaps of memory broke from The Winter Soldier's memory file and into the Asset's. The wipes served two purposes: to condition the Winter Soldier to be better and to render the Asset more pliable. Between wipes, the Asset always tried to search the fragments to find what he could before his progress was ripped away. Unfortunately, he never found anything concrete enough to download. The last wipe had been after the bridge, and that had been at least a few weeks ago, maybe even a few shared a mind, that the Asset knew. The difference between his memories and these new, harsh ones were clear. They weren't his.

The wipes reached many places, but not The Back. The Back held what little he knew for sure. His title, the pain, blurry visions of serving in the Army, and the knowledge of the two shared consciousness. Apparently, even The Back was compromised, if he could take what Steve had said as the truth. He was not "the Asset," he was…. or at least he had been… Bucky.

A resounding boom echoed around the carrier and the beams violently shook underneath them. The A-...Bucky fell to one knee and braced himself against a beam in order not to fall out. The limp man at his feet slid bonelessly through the broken window and started falling through the air, towards the water. Another shriek of metal against metal. A burst of fire six feet behind him. He was out of time. Without another thought, he jumped out, after the familiar man.

He hit the water hard, sinking to the bottom as momentum and gravity pulled harshly at his injured body. He sank and when he saw the flash of blue, he pulled on it. This wasn't his enemy, he knew it. Bucky had been an Army man, he had no reservations against killing for what he believed in, to take away life to preserve others. This man knew him. Knew his former life. That was no mistake.

His head broke the surface and he gasped for air, tightening his grip on the man and grunting with the effort of also raising Steve's head above water. He swam back awkwardly, metal arm behind him and making paddle-like strokes in the water, flesh arm wrapped around the upper shoulders of Steve. With a final, heavy grunt, he hoisted Steve up and onto the shore, shifting his grip so that his fist was curled around the blue material of the man's uniform. With a few hefty pulls, the man was sprawled on the beach beneath Bucky, head-turning softly to the side as his mouth flexed for air, eyes closed.

He hesitated for a second before turning, shoulders stiff and resolute.

Mission Report was quite now, a blissfully silent presence in the back of his mind. No telling him what to do, right now he was as much himself as he was capable of being.

He walked along the embankment for a few miles, ensuring the injured man could not follow. When he figured he had walked far enough, he ripped off the soaking jacket and threw it, as hard and as far as he could, into the water. The shirt he was left in was also wet, so he took it off and began ringing it out. It was black, so the water wasn't as visible as it would have been with any other color. He tossed the damp thing back on and ducked through the bushes and onto the lightly populated street. He was careful to keep his head down as he walked, hands stuffed into pockets. He had no idea where he was going, couldn't remember the last time he'd been outside and in his own brain.

He needed a place to lay low. Anywhere would do.

...

The homeless shelter had asked very few questions. The apartment was small and relatively barren except for the dusty mattress on the floor. He was mostly dried out by now, it had been a few hours since he had almost been blown out of the sky and 42 minutes since the owner of the building had smiled tightly and left Bucky to himself.

Surely, there were people out looking for him now, probably assuming an untimely death. When nobody was found….

Now was not the time. Now was the time for figuring out what the fuck was going on.

The knowns:

His name was Bucky.

Steve was a man of his past.

Steve obviously knew him from a time before, maybe from the Army..? The name "Steve" elicited a feeling within him, one that he couldn't place because frankly, he didn't know-how. Emotions were not familiar to him, not something The Winter Soldier ever felt. Pain. He knew that. Anger, determination. He felt many things but was often unable to decipher them.

So many blank spots. His teeth grit together in effort as he struggled to grip onto something further, something more than a vague picture.

A burning sensation lit the nerves of his head like fire on dynamite. Any moment his head felt like it would explode. He groaned, deep and mournful, as he was forced to stop trying. He pushed his head between his knees as the pressure grew. Whoever the guy was, Hydra was trying to hide him. They had conditioned him to feel pain when searching for forbidden thoughts. The locks on his memory rattled again, taunting close.

Bucky hissed.

Ok. So not that. At least, not now.

Other knowns:

His consciousness was a shared network. The Winter Soldier's memories were locked as well, but not as well as his were. They served a tantalizing reminder that he was not a complete person but were not as critical to hide. Was it Hydra's business if he tortured himself with the horrible realities of what he'd done with the knowledge that he couldn't stop doing it? No. The memory absence was often a mercy but was it also….. cowardice? Ignorance was not innocence. Now that he was alone, free, even, for the time being, he had to know all possible information. The acts may not have been done in his technical consciousness, but it was still his body, his transport. The Winter Soldier was nothing but an intricate code that had to be rewired as it became weaker over passing time. He wasn't a person, more of an entity.

_I want to know._

**Request: Denied**.

_I want to KNOW_.

**Repeat Request: Denied**.

There had to be a backdoor, some way to see into the memory file. He was a human, dammit! Not a fucking machine! They were separate sure, but they shared a consciousness for fuck sake. The last wipe had been the bridge. There were cracks. He could dig if he tried. This may be his only chance to truly understand what was happening.

His eyes screwed tightly shut and he grunted with the effort. The lock jangled but he was persistent. Slowly, a dull, aching burn traveled up his skull.

Fuck, this was painful.

When the Winter Soldier got activated, Bucky was pushed completely out of the control seat and into the dark abyss of space. No memory, no control, no nothing. Before now he had been hesitant to step anywhere near those chains. He knew enough to know he should fear the horrors he would find if he searched too deep. Yet here he now was, purposefully shaking the gates. Unbelievable.

**Request: Open Winter Soldier.**

**Code Needed** :

**Enter: Bucky Barnes**.

**Code Confirmed**.

The Winter Soldier File was open.

The effect was immediate and completely overwhelming. Too much. He bit back a cry as his brain struck a match and lit up like a bonfire. The sudden stimulus created two pockets of pressure behind each of his eyes, threatening to push them out of their sockets. He was on his knees now, he recognized faintly. The new onslaught of information was flooding his consciousness, reaching into every darkened corner of his mind, slamming into his memory wall. Things were leaking through, fighting to be recognized all at once.

The onslaught of slaughter was gruesome, as well as didn't recognize any of them, but every single face burned behind his eyes and anchored themselves into him.

He knew that he was a killer but seeing it in full HD and first-person? Well, that was something else entirely. He was a monster. The worst kind of monster, one that hid behind purposefully orchestrated ignorance in an attempt to hide from what he had done. There was no redemption from this, no turning back the clock to fix the mistakes. He couldn't separate the two entities now they were combined. They were both him. Someone would have to be held accountable and they were his fucking hands after all.

He felt Iike he was being held underwater. There was a cord around his neck, squeezing the air from his lungs and bricks stacked on his chest. His head swan. This wasn't an unfamiliar feeling to Bucky. It happened after almost every swipe session, though he didn't know why. He didn't know what to call whatever this odd feeling was, knew only that his chest seized, and when he woke up afterward his hands were shaking. He figured it was some kind of fit, a seizure maybe, or an undiagnosed illness.

**Deny**.

_What?_

**Affliction: Panic Attack**.

A label. He rolled the words along his tongue as he blinked, trying to clear his failing vision. Other things were stirring, deeper memories.

_"Don't do anything stupid until I get back."_

_"How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you."_

Steve. He was scrawny and…. tiny but it was unmistakably him. And the soft, teasing voice was familiar too. It was his own. Fucking christ.

He sounded nothing like that now. That tone was soft and free. His new tone was rough and stilted, sometimes he struggled to find the words for things.

_"Pick on somebody your own size"._

He grasped at the memories desperately, trying to ground himself as his thoughts started to float away. Gradually, he felt the ground become a little more solid beneath him as the bricks lessened on his chest. His ribs heaved with effort but for once, he didn't think he was going to pass out. Having something to ground him made apparently all the difference.

_"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes."_

And- wow. A name. Something to call himself instead of a nickname. A true label.

Logically, Bucky knew that if anyone used those words again, it was all over for him. He'd be kicked out of the pilot seat and his brain would attempt to hide the evidence from him. But having this, well, _open_ neural pathway? It was a sign of control. He could access this information again. He, Bucky Barnes, had a sense of control for the first time in as far as he could remember. As long as he downloaded the information into the Back, he would be able to keep it. They couldn't take it away unless they started from the beginning of his programming. Bucky doubted they would bother.

No.

It didn't matter regardless, because he was never going back

His synapses sputtered with electrical impulses like broken wires, spitting words into mind with seemingly no rhyme or reason. The insides of his head felt like a train had hit into the side of his brain and exploded, splintering into a million different pieces. The Winter Soldier's side was cracked wide open, broken chains scattered the floor. The memories were slowly trickling into the Back, except for the faces, which were burned there in vivid and immediate detail. His own memory file was cracked but firmly shut. Any attempt to shake the cage burned so badly that his vision almost whited out when he tried. He would never be able to open it, at least not on his own. His brain answered to a different master, it didn't heed the words of its owner. It never would.

Fuck.

He knew what he had to do, then. He was a weapon, clearly. He would never be a real person, he would never know who he was before. He was too fragmented to be sewn back together. No, staying only meant pain and death for everyone.

**Denied**.

_Oh, what the fuck is it now?_

**Denied. No self-execution**.

_Override_.

**Denied. No code entered**.

How ironic. He was one of the greatest assassins of all time, yet he couldn't fucking kill himself. Laughable, he thought, chest burning with another emotion, one he was also very familiar with. Hatred. It quickly overtook his whole body, overriding the pain and the focus he had been working with. His limbs were useless now, they submitted to Mission Report readily and he knew that regardless of what he did, he wouldn't be able to make them comply.

_Fuck you._ He seethed.

Silence.

So, another plan then.

Steve was the man who had triggered the memories inside him, but that didn't mean he could be trusted. Bucky still had very little idea of who the fuck he was, other than they had known each other when they were much younger. At this point, he figured that he truly couldn't trust anyone. He was compromised. His mind answered to any master who had the key and the monster could be set loose at any time.

He was on his own, at this point his best option was to lie low and wait for any more memory cracks. Maybe, overtime and without further meddling, he could gain a deeper insight into who the fuck he actually was. That sounded nice. He added two more things to the list of knowns.

1\. He was never going back.

2\. God fuck was he tired of fighting.

**Author's Note:**

> At the end of Civil War, Tony asks Bucky "Do you even remember them?". Bucky replies "I remember all of it". I think it's canon that Bucky remembers all Winter Soldier memories while struggling with his own.
> 
> Review! :)


End file.
